POETRY, a poem

CONTEMPLATIVE and fair, with look divine,
     Her wistful vision fixed on the unseen,—
     The future hers, as the long past has been,—
She waits apart. Who disregard her shrine,
Who pour to her libations of red wine,
     Who heal their griefs at her loved Hippocrene,
     She noteth not—enwrapt in thought serene,
And pondering grave meanings, line by line.

She has envisaged the veiled heart of things—
     Has passed through Purgatory, and her way,
          Darkling, unravelled through the deeps of Hell;
          And thence arising where the blessèd dwell,
Has touched the stars with her aspiring wings,
     And knows that she is deathless as are they!

"Poetry" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Critic (July 1905), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.